According to the very same people you and that Belvedere queer credit for "inventing" black metal, yes. You need to go through those Metalion/Lords of Chaos books of yours once again it seems._________________Permabanned

This thread turned out fairly entertaining, but I had to read it in short bursts to maintain sanity. Sheezus.

I do consider Venom to have the "black metal spirit". But I personally don't give a fuck if it makes people feel warm and cuddly to pull some revisionist nonsense. Just don't be surprised when others tell you you're being ridiculous.

Fuck all that though. If you can't get into Welcome to Hell or Black Metal you're probably an enemy of rock and roll.

Black metal is by definition heavy metal music with satanic lyrics/aesthetics so Venom is certainly black metal. Now please get the fuck out of my scene

Hm, not really, punk is the element that gave certain metal bands the edge they needed to sound extreme. Venom? Possessed? early Mayhem? They all drew influence from punk, so in a way you can say Venom did differ from all the other satanic-themed heavy metal bands of those days. And I don't belong to your scene._________________Sic transit gloria mundi

"Welcome to Hell" was my first non-Metallica, non-Sabbath metal album and pretty much what I considered to be "black metal" for a long time - to the point where I dismissed anything after the first-wave for not being "true" black metal for the a long time. So, at least to me... Venom is black fucking metal.

Bathory. That "in scandinavia" answer I think is misleading, because yes I believe bathory to be the fist of the "established" style of black metal, but that option could also be for those fucking poser faggots who think black metal started in norwway.

And on a second note... label "black metal" in the 80's was used a lot differently then today, but I have to admit if it were used in the same way now as it was then, it would certainly confuse the fuck out of everything!_________________http://antisocialevolution.altervista.org

The best thing about Venom was that Bathory & Hellhammer were able to take certain things from them such as the evil aesthetic and make it better.

Yes.

I've never liked Venom much; they're not a pre-requisite for black metal appreciation. Sure, they were a big influence on formative bands I do enjoy, such as Bathory - but that doesn't mean I should like Venom's music any more than I should like whatever bands influenced Venom, or whoever influenced those bands, and so on...